Fancy in the Underworld
by chespin
Summary: Barbara blames Bette's underwear. — Dick/Barbara.


disclaimer: don't own Young Justice. also, title taken from nanowrimo's forums.  
notes: fluff and crack and sweet things. ish. let's say this takes place soon after Dick's 19th birthday, and all is kind of well in the world.

* * *

"You know," Babs says, Bette Kane's underwear dangling from her finger, "I didn't think Bette was the kind of girl to stamp her name on the back of her, uh…_lingerie._"

Dick chokes.

"I didn't go in your room," Babs says before he hacks out his cornflakes. "Nope, I found this treasure _behind the sofa_."

"Um." Dick wheezes, and then tries to smile innocently. "We, uh… It was a big party?"

Babs rolls her eyes and sits opposite him at the kitchen table. "You don't do parties," she reminds him. "Actually, you actively _hate_ parties that have anything to do with the name Dick Grayson."

"I do not."

"Yes, yes you do. It's why you run away from the phone every time Alfred calls and why Bruce doesn't bother dragging you to those society events anymore."

"I thought that had more to do with the closet incidents…"

Babs flicks the underwear at Dick's head. It lands perfectly, and he grimaces as the red lace hangs in front of his eyes.

"At least it's clean," Babs offers as he shakes it off.

He scowls at her. Though seeing as he'd woken up all of ten minutes ago, after Babs had waltzed into his apartment without a care, he's got bed hair and his eyes are only half-open so the effect is rather…diminished. In fact, he looks more like an overgrown pug, but Babs isn't mean enough to say that to his face.

"Why are you here?" he whines. "It's not my birthday, it's not your birthday, it's probably someone's birthday in Canada but unless you're planning on marrying that person, you shouldn't _be_ here."

Babs puts on an affronted look. "I have to have a reason to visit my childhood best friend?"

At that, Dick picks up his spoon and points it at her face. "We're not childhood best friends, technically, and you only say that when you want something."

"Cruel, but accurate," Babs agrees, shrugging. "But seriously — I just…wanted to see how you were doing."

Dick stares at her. Then he starts to grin. "You hacked into the security cameras!" he crows. Babs feels her skin flushing red and reminds herself to tell her dad that she hates him and his genes. "So — what? You saw me and Bette leave together the other night and you wanted to make sure she didn't kill me or something?"

Remembering the girl from Gotham Academy, Babs mumbles, "It's possible. I keep telling you, if anyone could go crazy it'd be Bette."

Dick snickers. "Yeah, right. You're just _jealous_."

"I'm _not_," Babs says loudly. Glancing at Dick's half-soggy cornflakes, she adds darkly, "I hope you choke on those."

He keeps laughing, and Babs sighs. She wonders why she bothers to make sure he doesn't walk off with a succubus one day; it'd probably be a favor to mankind (and womankind, really) if he did.

"So," Dick says after a minute. His face is redder than hers now, though for a better reason, and he still breaks out into a giggle here and there. "_Are_ you jealous, Babs? You can tell me, I swear I won't…laugh."

Babs feels her eyebrows rise, and Dick grins sheepishly.

"Why," she says, crossing her arms and shoving her nose into the air, "would I be jealous? Maybe I'm here because I mentioned it to Alfred and _he_'s the one who asked me to check up on you?"

"Alfred keeps way, way out of my business," Dick says automatically. "He's busy enough with Bruce's so-called lifestyle, he doesn't want to deal with mine." He taps his spoon against the edge of his bowl, and smiles at Babs. "Nice try, though. I'm still convinced you're jealous."

"Who'd be jealous over you?" Babs mutters.

"Apparently you."

She rolls her eyes again. At thirteen, Dick had fumbled his way through conversations with the intent of 'flirting'; at nineteen, he's better than Bruce and girls swoon in his presence.

Not Babs though. Babs Gordon does not swoon for anyone or anything — except for a particularly decent piece of tech, but that's _different_.

"I'm not jealous," she says, looking everywhere but his face. "I'm just…worried for you, okay? I'm allowed to be worried for you if I think you're trying to fill some deep, dark hole in your heart with the nearest available body."

She chances a look at him, hoping to see his face soften or for the teasing to light up—

"Nope," Dick says, stretching. "Don't buy it. Come on, Babs, you were a better liar when we were kids."

"You're really hung up on this," Babs says. They might not be childhood friends, exactly, but Babs still knows that the best way to get Dick off your case is to put the focus on him. "Do you _want_ me to be jealous, Grayson?"

He gives her all of three seconds to enjoy the vaguely stupefied expression on his face. Then Dick leans forward, milk-breath and all, and says, "_Yes_, Barbara, I want you to be jealous."

She sputters. And after reeling through the last minute again in her head, she sputters some more, and there might be spit flying from her mouth.

"_Why_?" she chokes out. Babs is smart, Babs has been called smart her whole life, so she's good at reading in between the lines — and Dick just gave her the world's biggest, sloppiest love note. But she'd rather hear it from him, just to be safe.

Dick shrugs. "Why not?" he says. "No, wait, I know you're neurotic — how about, I'll give you one reason on every date?"

"_I'm not dating you!_"

He tuts at her. "Careful," he chides, pointing at the walls, "my neighbors get up late. I don't wanna get evicted… Though," he adds, a light entering his eyes, "if that's what you're aiming for, I might just have to crash with you for a while."

The sound that comes out of Babs's throat isn't remotely human. Dick isn't fazed; he's heard it enough times over the years to understand it to mean: _I have no idea what is going on anymore so I'm going to start screaming soon._

"I know," Dick says sympathetically. He would reach out to pat Babs's hand, but considering her very red face, he thinks he might come back missing his own. "You're probably thinking, why's he doing it now? Why couldn't he just be a normal guy and say something to spare you all this trouble and confusion?"

"You aren't normal," Babs snarks, glaring and trying not to think about the rest of his words, "you're _touched in the head_, that's what you are."

Dick beams. "Exactly! I don't like normal, this is way more fun."

Babs stares at him, and the way that he doesn't even look a little sleepy anymore. She swears, if she finds out that he had planned this to the _day_…she's going to trash his geeky little tech collection in his spare room. And then she's going to set fire to the remains, and make him watch as it all burns.

Or she's going to tell Alfred, who'd then refuse to clean Dick's apartment. Ever.

"You're insane," she says at last. "You're completely insane, and there's no point to this, because I'm not jealous and I'm definitely not dating you."

"Of course you aren't," Dick agrees. "We're just going to keep doing what we're doing, only I promise to be a one-girl only kind of guy, and you promise to be a one-guy kind of girl."

"…_What_?"

"We could add kissing, if you want," Dick offers. "I'm open to any and all suggestions."

She stares at him some more, trying to reconcile this 'I've-secretly-been-wanting-to-date-you' Dick with the one who typically had a different girl on his arm every other week. It's not like she hasn't seen him staring at her for a little longer than usual, but that's just…Dick, being Dick; he'd probably been assessing her gait or something for a new prank. Dick can't like her, his not-childhood friend, and he couldn't have tried to show it through dating just about every _other_ girl on the east coast.

Except — Dick is Dick, and Dick's common sense is skewed at the best of times. Add to that that Dick's father-figure is Bruce, the same Bruce whose approach to women is to pretend to be a playboy of epic proportions, and this whole…thing starts to make some sense.

And…it's not like Babs was _always_ lying about being jealous.

"I'm not kissing you," she says after a while. She turns away from Dick's half gleeful, half disappointed look, and slowly adds, "…Unless you brush your teeth, in which case I might reconsider."


End file.
